What Your Favorite 90s Boy Band Says About You

If you liked any 90s boy band it goes without saying you are NOT alone and you probably have a touch of the crazies. You lined up outside Tower Records for tickets to go on sale (this was before Ticketmaster), you created collages from pictures in Teen Beat for your High School 3 ring binder and you tried to memorize all the steps to “Bye Bye Bye” using a VHS tape. All our friends were also obsessed with the same 4 or 5 guys and yet we all held on to the delusion that somehow, a relationship with our favorite boy band-er was totally possible. Even when you lived in Nowhere, Nebraska. But hey, that’s normal RIGHT? Passion about pop music and the overly gelled dudes who sang it was totally a part of growing up in the 90s. You might have also spent a small fortune on concert tickets, merchandise at Hot Topic and spent all your afternoons taping TRL. Yes, TAPING, on a VHS but in the end it was totally worth it because we’ll always have those memories.

Now, when someone tells me their favorite 90s boy band is OTown or LFO or Backstreet, I know exactly who they are because of those experiences then… do you agree? Let’s see..

(YM!!!)

O Town

If your favorite band was OTown, clearly your parents didn’t love you enough. You were allowed to watch MTV unbidden and buy albums with songs about nocturnal emissions. I mean come on parents “liquid dreams?!” You’re the parents, not the friends. Your mom probably dropped you off at the mall the week before the OTown concert in your city so you could buy a new concert outfit (read new jean shorts, halter top and platform foam flip flops, natch) from Wet Seal. You grew up to be “one of the guys” who makes fart jokes and thinks a dude with three names is totally ok. You call Kesha your spirit animal. Ashley Parker Angel is either the name of your chihuahua or the names of your three future children you have after you stop partying so hard on week days..

98 Degrees

If you liked 98 degrees you are probably now the mom of three living in the suburbs somewhere in America driving a Kia Sorrento. You never miss an episode of Dancing With the Stars and became personally invested, voting hundreds and hundreds of times, enlisting your begrudging husband and kids to vote as well, when Drew Lachey joined the cast. You still correct people when they pronounce “Lachey” wrong (You: “It’s La-shay” Everyone: “Who?”). You probably still refuse to buy Chicken of the Sea or anything from the Jessica Simpson fashion line, on principle..

5ive

You probably watched the Disney Channel as a young teen/adolescent a lot and/or were from the UK. You didn’t understand why your dad laughed when you told him your favorite member was Abz. Abz Breen (now Love) was a perfectly reasonable name for a young lad, right? That Disney Channel Concert special on VHS is gathering dust in a box at your parents house and you secretly wish you could rescue it along with your B*Witched and Spice Girls CDs. You are currently glued to your TV for the Big Reunion show on ITV2 because 5ive’s back together!!! If you live in and States and you are us, you are sad you don’t have ITV2 to see if Abz now has abs or a beer gut (spoiler: it’s the gut). WAH..

LFO

If you loved LFO, you know what LFO stands for: Lyte Funky Ones. And that it’s spelled “LYTE” not “light,” duh. You probably even now still get a little smile on your face when you walk by an Abercrombie and Fitch or order Chinese Food. Sadly, we don’t know much else about you since no one has ever met a real life LFO fan. RIP Rich..

Hanson

If Hanson was your favorite 90s boy band then you’re still the biggest Hanson fan IN THE WORLD. No joke, you still listen to their music old and new, you go to their shows when they decide to tour every 5 years, you did that shoeless walk thing once or twice, you know the names of ALL of Taylor’s kids. And there’s a lot of them. If you’re a Hanson fan you’re a bit crunchy, fey boys with long hair still do it for you, you named that German Shepherd/Pit bull mix you rescued from the kill shelter, Penny and you probably have THIS tattooed on your body somewhere. Don’t lie..

Plus One

If you even know who Plus One is then you were a Christian who was either home schooled, sang in your Youth group’s worship band and/or attended a Christian college and convinced your roommate to drive with you to every concert/state fair/winter teen retreat/Acquire the Fire conference in a tristate radius. Your closet probably still contains a cassette tape Performance Trax for “Soul Tattoo” (next to Rachael Lampa and Stacie Orrico, natch). You have the making of their Obvious (beginning of the end) album DVD, that purity book Jason wrote, and you probably sorta hated Joy Williams for dating Jason back then but a few years later were probably in the front row to hear that little band of hers, THE CIVIL WARS, play. You still know that hand motion from “Written On My Heart” and do it when the song plays on KLove in your mom’s car when you’re back home visiting. You are probably also named Bekah or Nikki..

Backstreet Boys

If you loved the Backstreet Boys best you probably already have your tickets to the BSB/NKOTB/Boyz II Men reunion tour with your other five mom friends. You ladies are going to have a wild mom’s night out in which you take a Limo service to a Cheesecake Factory before the concert and get slippy slidey on one and a half Pinot Grigio’s then you and the moms will have a good drunken cry when the Boys perform “I Want It That Way.” One of your mom friends will complain so you’ll leave before the encore because everyone’s tired and wants to go home. You’re not used to staying up past 10:30. You also probably donate to that Brian Littrell Heart Disease Charity every year..

NSYNC

If your favorite 90s boy band was NSYNC, one summer in high school you got a part time job at your Dad’s office to pay for those front row tickets you bought from a ticket broker for their No Strings Attached Tour. Now, as an adult you have an unspoken understanding between you and your self/significant other/accountant that if NSYNC ever reunites you will be there come hell or second mortgage. You probably also were at the opening night for Social Network and stop to watch On The Line any time it’s on the premium channels (last week!) and tune into Lance’s radio show on Sirius called Dirty Pop (of course). You might have also learned HTML in high school and started a blog empire (heavy sarcasm here) as an adult because of NSYNC. Deep in the back of your childhood closet sits a dusty alter to the power of boy band merchandising including marionettes, bobble heads, tshirts, books, dvd’s and things you won’t even tell your therapist about..

I don’t know about you but I’m off to dig through my closet for those old 90s boy band CDs, Bobble heads and binders full of pictures and ticket stubs. Those were some good days!

Did we get it right? Do you know these girls? Which girl are you? Which boy band did we miss?

TAGS

Nikki’s Current Obsessions: Using Elton John lyrics as my Tagline. Dogs. Jon Snow. Hello Kitty. Game of Thrones. Saying a/s/l before starting a chat with a friend. The word “myello.” Vampires. That guy in that band. Stalk me @itshowtimenikki everywhere!

This is way better than a horoscope. You should do this for other singers/songwriters/movie obsessions of the late 90s to early 00s to tell us what we are today.

Although I was never that into boy bands (I was too nerdy), I guess I am a combo of NSync and OTown (I know, right) because I went to their concerts and…yep… your assessment of my current state is, with a bit of creative interpretation, oddly accurate.

operarose

…although I’d stop short of calling Kesha my spirit animal, the thought of that did make me LOL.

I MEAAAANNN… also prepare for another post about them in the future. 😉

Zees

Hanson fan. ACCURATE.

Zees

Scarily accurate. Also, I am not the bearer of one, but I have played “spot the Hanson tattoo” at shows, and they are numerous. Including the chick with the full back tat of the symbol in rainbow with the guys’ autographs around it.

Well shoot. I may just have to now. The only question is, can I write it in a way that I can attach my real name and face to? I’d have to leave out the part about masturbating for the first time to thoughts of Taylor Hanson.

Too accurate!!! It makes me feel not quite so special now. You mean I’m not the only one with a Hanson tattoo??? But mine’s a lyric, not the symbol. 😛

Elise_R

I guess I always assumed any O Town fan was like patient zero of the hipster virus and only liked them ironically.

operarose

You assumed correct.

I remember seeing them in concert and a friend and I made a poster for – what’s his name? The one with the three names, I think, the sort of unbathed, hipster looking one that was vaguely talented and came out with his own CD later on.

The poster was distinctively ironic.

I guess we were the prototype hipsters. Something to brag to the children about someday…

Okay! So my mind was just blown…. I literally just went on a googling spree as I was sitting waiting to get my blood drawn at the doctor! The chick from the Civil Wars is JOY WILLIAMS?!? (Super sheltered homeschooled Christian girl right here) I can’t believe I never figured that out.

Also….. I listened to O-town and watched Making the Band with my parents…. You wanna start something?! Lol I was also like 19 and FYI the first season of Making the band wasn’t on MTV… It was on like ABC. Because we were a good little Christian family that didn’t have cable. Also liked LFO.

BUT who are we kidding? BSB and NSync were the real deal… But I never actually owned any albums…. I had to get away w sitting in my room for hours on end listening to the radio and running and pushing record when a song started that I loved. To this day when I hear Back Streets Back it immediately morphs into Alanis Morrisette Hand in Pocket because that was the next song on the tape that I only caught 1/2 of! Haha!

Too true. And yet summer of ’94 found me touring WA, ID, BC and Alberta with the church youth choir in a musical that consisted entirely of 4Him songs.

It’sJustMe

One of the guys from 4Him graduated from my college, so three out of the four years I was there they played for homecoming. By the third year they almost had a revolt on their hands! We won’t mention the autographed CD I might still have somewhere…

itshowtimenikki

” To this day when I hear Back Streets Back it immediately morphs into Alanis Morrisette Hand in Pocket because that was the next song on the tape that I only caught 1/2 of!”

so many songs are like that for me!!! oh mixtapes!

JellyBeanRainbow

Heyyyyy, you forgot to mention Take That and they are in the middle of your collage. Should I write the caption?
It would be something like this:
You’re probably from UK or Europe and you never cared much for the boy bands. Apart from N’Sync and BSB you never heard of any of the bands mentioned bove.
But one decent song after another and Take That creeped under your skin and you really started to like them. Then there was this song called Babe and it’s fashion coincided with the heroin chic on the runways and you and your friends thought – for a moment – that it was the best video of all times.
It was the only winter in your life when you were going out at night wearing Doc Martens type of boots, long skirts, wooly jumpers ( just like the girl in the video) and you were never cold and your feet never hurt and you were dressed as seen in Vogue. *Good times*
Of course you were too cool to actually own Take That DVDs, but you watched them on MTV obsessively. You didn’t know the names of band members until they broke up.
( Then Robbie Williams started a solo career and you were good for the next decade. He never made it big in the USA, but his music videos are the best.
)
You’re still into indie music and you still think Nirvana is the best band of all times; and that Rolling Stones are the best boy band of all times – look at the, they’re in their late 60s and they behave and dress like boys, you have to love that.
But your secret love for boy bands is here again with 1D, you can’t help, but you like them.

@itshowtimenikki:disqus informs me you may not fly for Lufthansa and if that’s the case that was just a random comment that I hope you enjoy xo

JellyBeanRainbow

No, I do not work for Lufthansa, but I mostly fly with them ( because they give me discount). But I’m glad you’re going to Spain and I know you’re going to love it.
The main question is: why are you going to Europe and not visiting me too?

i KNEW there was a reason I connected you & Lufthansa… you had that one horrid flight where you sat in one of those terrible seats all the way to LA once!

I know i know 🙁 we are going for JUST 6 days b/c my sister is there for school but I know David will love Europe (he’s never been!) and we’ll be back– hopefully soon!!! And we’ll visit all the people & places I want to go! xo

itshowtimenikki

i love TAKE THAT!! maybe they’ll be in a part two of this post.

JellyBeanRainbow

Yes, please, part 2! Maybe you should do part 3 as well, with bands like Blink182 or Sum41 or Good Charlotte, who pretend they’re not boy bands and make fun of them ( remember All the Small Things by Blink hahha), but in fact, they’re just like boybands with tattoos.

I don’t know how, post Michael W. Smith obsession, I managed to avoid being a Plus One girl. Maybe because I was in the Pacific Northwest and even the youth group kids were all into Alternative and shunning Pop? So the closest I got to loving a boyband was Newsboys… which was all boys, but they actually played instruments, and there was no real choreography. Humorously, I worked one of their shows for a charity about five years ago and their primary demographic was still youth group 15 year olds. Also saw Jars of Clay a few years ago and they were dressed like a boy band (all variations on head to toe white), which was hilarious after their mid-90s flannels… they were the very first of five or 6 groups… oh how the mighty have fallen.

I think you’re missing one of the best (fake) boy bands…. That classic MTV group 2ge+her! I mean, any band that knows their calculus has to be awesome, right…and I guess they could be for the nerdy fans?

>.< (suffering an attack of old-itis fanhagia) ok, I have to throw in Duran Duran, Haircut 100 and Curiosity Killed the Cat. I aged out of the 90s boy bands. Hanson and NSync (i did watch that HBO concert twice) were cute as heck tho.

I remember seeing Ashley Parker Angel on some MTV show when he was trying to make it as a solo artist. He was living with his pregnant girlfriend and her mother. There was an embarrassing moment when the mother saw his morning salute. Cut to years later while watching an episode of Dirty Soap (I know, I watch some awful TV), the girlfriend was dating a soap star’s brother.

And that is all I know about boy bands.

Chio

HANSON!!! and I’m still a fan!! =D !!! they will be always the best for me

I’m with ElfeVert. My fangirling happened during the decade prior. Back then most of my obsessions wore a lot of black and eyeliner, but there will always be Duran Duran. The Reflex tour and front row seats in front of John Taylor.

For what it’s worth, I did see NKOTB back in the day. Tiffany opened, or did they open for her, can’t remember. I was one half of a 20-something chaperone team who took their nieces to see them (complete with homemade signs that we held for them because we “grown ups” were taller than most of the audience). BTW, they had their tour musicians step aside while they all played instruments for a few songs.

Thx! This may be just what’s needed to satisfy any lingering curiosity. Adding it to my Amazon wishlist.

Becka

I was a Westlife girl 🙂

itshowtimenikki

Oh man. West life. I have some good memories of a boy tied to a west life song.

It’sJustMe

NKOTB was my boyband of choice, which I think just makes me… old.

SwedishChick

Well, your Hanson fan description was spot on, but you were wrong about one thing. They tour WAY MORE OFTEN than every 5 years. In fact, they’ve been touring pretty much EVERY year for close to a decade now!

Luludee

So, even though I was born in the 80’s and was of the target age for all these bands, the only boy band my friends and I liked back in the 90’s was the Original boy band – The Monkees! Hey, Hey!

We purchased (from Rhino Records) and repeatedly watched VHS copies of the show. We managed to find their movie Head on VHS and one of my friends copied it and passed out a copy to each girl in our group. We then commenced watching it daily for about a month, thus memorizing the entire thing. Pictures were drawn, talks of making our own Monkees inspired movie were had, dibs were claimed (Micky all the way!), and IRC Monkee-fan chat rooms were visited. And we pretty much shunned and reviled any modern-day boy bands.

Oh my gosh, I had forgotten all about PlusOne! I discovered them in college probably at a Jennifer Knapp concert or on the local Christian radio station Fish 93.9, I believe. They were hot! It was the best of both worlds, a couple of my college youth group and I drooled over them for quite a while.
I was BSB all the way! Nick Carter and I are only a few months apart, and I recall that I thought it was so cool that someone my age was so successful and on the Disney Christmas parade on TV! Swoon!
Love this post!